Friday, June 30, 2006

Thursday, June 29, 2006

So, do you remember that scene from Jaws (or maybe Jaws 2) where whats-his-face throws a fit and starts shooting a pistol in the air and screaming at everyone at the beach to get out of the water because he sees a shark?

GET OFF OF THE ROAD! EVERYONE! GET OFF OF THE ROAD!

Yes, that's right, my little sister, that tiny little thing I used to (litarally) bounce on my knee and swing so high in a hammock that she still has nightmares about it -- well, she's got her licence to terrorize those foolish souls who, for whatever mad reason, decide to head out on the road when she's around. Watch out, people! Click to enlarge. No, wait, don't! The horror might knock you unconcious!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Today's photos of the day is from the Native American art museum on the mall in Washington, D.C. I camped out on the stairwell for a good ten minutes before this guy, and then these two guys finally showed up. :) Click to enlarge.

I was reading up on spherical landscape renders earlier tonight and thought I'd try the crudest form of this (just polar-coordinate mapping an image in Photoshop) on one of the HDR shots of the Capitol... it didn't turn out terribly great or terribly bad, but it's definately interesting. :)

I've been getting a bit of repeat traffic here lately, so I thought I'd give away an image I shot in Washington D.C. that I'm currently using as my desktop background. You're free to use this image as your desktop background too, though I'd ask that you not do something crazy like attempt to publish it. Pick the resolution that you desire below (your desktop image will pop up in a new window, where you can right-click save it):

Today's photo of the day is of a kid feeding the birds on the national mall in Washington, D.C. There's an interesting story to this, as the kid was actually being taught how to do it right by the guy in the car in the background. The kid's mom said that the man had been showing the kid how to get scores of birds to show up for the last half hour or so (the technique mainly involves throwing bird feed out continuously until the birds start flying away to tell their friends about the free food). Reminded me a lot of the birds that used to be at Trafalgar Square, until London passed a law against feeding the birds. Click to enlarge.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Congrats to Becca, who just defended her thesis. She was removed from the classroom in a comatose state and I think she had to resort to using a sword in the end, but all's well that ends well, and I hear Chuck Peek is healing nicely. Congratuations, Master Becca!

While I was in D.C., I also tried experimenting with HDR on some other familiar landmarks. This is harder than you'd think, as you have to avoid the attention of the park police, who get a bit fidgety about tripods. All were shot using 6 shots bracketed at 2 stops apart, assembled and downconverted with Photoshop, with the exception of the Capitol, which was shot on a 3 shot bracket, untripoded, because the police made me put the tripod away. The camera is an EOS 20D, the wide lens is a Canon EF 10-22, the lone telephoto is a Sigma 70-200.

The success is varying. The Lincoln Memorial looks a bit wonky, but keep in mind that the sun is in the process of setting just to the right of where the frame cuts off -- this is shooting into the sun. HDR does a pretty good job of managing this!

The difference in colortone appearence between the two shots of the WWII memorial is the difference in sunset lighting over the course of 10 minutes. Light sure changes fast at sunset. Click any photo to enlarge in a new window.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Here's a photo series from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. These are all interior shots done using a technique called HDR, which I've previously explored here, here, here, and here. HDR, it would seem, is very well suited to interiors of large buildings.

All of these photos were tripoded and I always utilized a cable release. Most of these were created using six bracketed exposures, each two stops apart, combined and downsampled in photoshop. All photos enlarge quite a bit in a new window when you click them.

Well, maybe not all entirely embarrasing; one's of me knawing on a turkey leg and the other is of me shooting trolls with a bow, so I suppose that's about as manly as you can get. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? Of course they're embarrasing. ;)

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Well, I'm back from D.C! I should start posting a boatload of photos soon -- I think I'll spread them out over a long period of time though, so the page doesn't become dial-up unfriendly. Today's photo is of dad, hammin' it up at the new Smithsonian hangar. We had a great time touring around D.C. Thanks pops! Love you!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

I'm not even gonna try to do any toning on this, so you get mostly what came outta the camera. :) Found this shy duck (actually, just a duck washing his bill) chilling out above the WWII memorial fountain, just west of the reflecting pool. That's the Lincoln memorial in the background. Click to enlarge.

I probably won't post much over the next week, as I'm in Washington, D.C. Here's a couple random shots from so far (I've got about a bajillion, but I'm not going to spend my vacation toning images, and I don't want to tone my better stuff until I have a better monitor to work with):

Flying in. I tried to make it seem like we were a space shuttle deorbiting, but didn't do as good a job as I'd hoped.

I shot this on the first day while wandering around downtown Roslyn, VA, looking for a Ritz Camera. (I forgot my battery charger; looks like I'm going to be limping on AA's once my pack dies).

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Today's photo of the day is of the aformentioned Little Sarah Pequena and her friend, Beth. This is from about five years ago. It was shot on Reala, with a Sigma 70-200 on a Canon EOS-3. Click to enlarge. :)

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Today's photo of the day is of Little Sarah Pequena (now Little Sarah Johnson-Pequena) waaay back in the ill-fated "Iowa Trip" that I took four or so years ago. Moral of the story: unless tranquilizers and restraints are involved, never willingly go on a road trip with three X chromosomes and no backup Y chromosomes. Trust me! :) Click to enlarge.

Or perhaps a shrine? I should have taken a photo of the exterior so that I'd have an easier job matching places up later. :) I'm almost done with my Europe scans, so the subject matter should change sometime soon.

Lanette, who has been described as "a great model" by some of the members of some the photo communities that I've posted the HDR portraits of her to, sent me some of the photos she shot on the fun photo trip we went on Friday -- I've posted them below. The last one is a good example of how she has a habit of seeing the craziest shots. :) (If only I was as good a model as she was, eh?) Clicking makes 'em bigger.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Here's the rest of the photos from the fun photo excursion me & Lanette took. Click any of them to enlarge them in a new window.

Below are shots of a church on top of a hill somewhere east of Lincoln and west of Omaha. Some fairly determined Catholic fellows put this one together -- the first one was blown down in a giant windstorm just after it was finished (I kid you not -- some would take that as a message, eh?), was ground up and buried, and then another one (this time built with load-bearing steel instead of just wood) erected on the old church's grave. Not by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin will this one blow down.

Lanette definately got into the act -- there's nothing too big or small for her to photograph.

Seriously, she thinks of the weirdest shots. Here she is getting a shot of the ceiling girders. A moment before this shot, she was trying to get a shot of me getting a shot of her by focusing on the reflection in the steel bowl at frame right.

And here I am pseudo-secretly taking a photo of her showing me one of her photos. Ha ha! The cable-release ninja strikes again!

Havin' some fun with the door and the entryway. Man, I dig this wideangle lens.

Lanette kickin' it by the Virgin Mary. I hear this is a local hangout for hooligans.

There was a striking radio tower just to the east of the church.

Through the tallgrass. Slapped my 50mm on for this one.

A shot of some hay bales we came across. I cloned a small number of pixels (probably like a dozen) out at left, as there was a pivot waaaaaaaay in the distance. Sinces it's art, I'm not too worried about it.